Robbs Hut
1Heads up1 fire 33 mi away
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 27 of the next 28 nights read Oct 15
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 12 notices
In the agency’s own words
Robbs Hut offers a peaceful, rustic getaway with phenomenal views of the Sierra Nevada. The cozy, yet minimalistic cabin is open year-round and can be accessed by car in warmer months. From November to mid-June, guests can expect to hike, snowshoe or ski up a 3-mile trail with a 1,000-foot elevation gain to reach the hut. This trail runs along Robbs Road from Ice House Road. Originally a sleeping quarters for rangers of the adjacent Forest Service lookout from 1934 to 1978, the hut makes an ideal recreation spot with mountain biking and off-road vehicle trails nearby. The lookout is open to the public for day use. Keep reading
Recreation
Mountain biking, hiking and cross country skiing are popular activities for visitors. Access by skis to the cabin is recommended for intermediate to advanced skiers.
Facilities
The hut is equipped with a propane heater and a cookstove. The cookstove is served by piped-in propane, and there is a newly installed solar lighting system. Other amenities include three sleeping platforms (3/4 inch width), mattresses, four wool blankets, a shovel, bucket and cleaning supplies. Outside on the stone deck by the lookout are a charcoal grill, campfire ring, picnic table and vault toilet building. No water, electricity or garbage service are available. Guests must bring their own supply of water and garbage bags. Additional items to bring include food, cooking utensils and pots, sleeping bags, toilet paper, first aid supplies, matches and a flashlight. Click here for more cabin details.
Natural Features
Perched atop Robbs Peak at an elevation of 6,686 feet, the hut boasts panoramic views of the Crystal Range in the Desolation Wilderness and the Sacramento Valley. The peak is part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Eldorado National Forest and sits in a clearing surrounded by Jeffrey and Ponderosa pine.
Nearby Attractions
The nearest phone a pay phone at the Crystal Basin Information Station on Ice House Road, 13 miles southwest of the hut. This station is open in summer only.
What the agency tells you
GATES - The road is three (3) miles long from Ice House Road to Robbs Hut. The upper gate is approximately a ½ mile from the hut and remains locked year-round. Renters will be given a combination to open the lock on this gate and the hut. The lower gate, located approximately 100 feet from Ice House Road, is LOCKED in the winter (generally, November - April) to protect the road and ski trail. In the winter, primary access to the hut is by skiing, snowshoeing or hiking.
Check in procedures have changed. As of January 1, 2022. All check-in information will be emailed from sm.fs.rentalcabins@usda.gov to the email the renter has listed in their Recreation.gov account prior to their check-in date. Renters should check both the inbox and the spam/junk mail folders prior to travelling to the cabin. In the event the renter does not see the email, they should contact the Eldorado National Forest at (530) 644-2324 during business hours. This will ensure that staff have the correct email address to resend the rental packet, which includes combinations for gate/cabin.
Check out time is 1pm and check in time is 2pm
Everything else this campground posts · 9
To provide an enjoyable and memorable experience to all visitors, a stay limit of nights per calendar year is now in effect. Use of any Eldorado National Forest cabin is limited to 6 nights per facility and a cumulative of 12 nights in all Eldorado National Forest recreation rental facilities per calendar year. This time limit includes any combination of stays in Harvey West Cabin, Loon Lake Chalet, Robbs Hut, Sly Guard Cabin and Van Vleck Bunkhouse.
No pets allowed in building
Winter access is not guaranteed as weather is unpredictable
Bring water
This is a 'pack it in, pack it out' facility; please bring garbage bags
The nearest phone is 13 miles southwest at the Crystal Basin Info Station
Bears frequent the area; keep all food out of sight in approved containers or locked inside your vehicle and remove all food from area after eating
For current weather conditions and fire restriction status, click here
Don't Move Firewood: Protect California's forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. For more information visit firewood.ca.gov.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…grill, campfire ring, picnic table and vault toilet building. No water, electricity or garbage service…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Guests must bring their own supply of water and garbage bags.”
- Stay limit
- 6 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- Biking
- Hiking
- Fall color · reported 6 days ago, 24 km away
- No change
Full this Saturdayread Oct 15
How full the weekend is nationally.
3 campgrounds have sites open within 30 miles, read 15:39 UTC. See them
OpenBookedClosed
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read Oct 15 Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 3
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 15:39 UTC
- RV Village Campground at Camp Richardson ResortEldorado National Forest · 20 mi · 142 of 196 site-nights open
- Eagles Nest at Camp Richardson ResortEldorado National Forest · 20 mi · 21 of 50 site-nights open
- Zephyr Cove RV & CampgroundToiyabe National Forest · 25 mi · 56 of 225 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read Oct 15 · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AREA ROBBS HUT | 1 | cabin nonelectric | 3,654 ft | $65 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
South Fork Group - Eldorado NF (CA)Eldorado National Forest · 1.7 mi
Yellowjacket2.3 mi
Wench Creek2.7 mi
Wolf Creek CaliforniaEldorado National Forest · 2.8 miWench Creek Group CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 3.2 miCamino Cove CampgroundEldorado National Forest · 3.4 miFrom Placerville, drive 21 miles east on Highway 50, turn left on Ice House Road and go 23 miles north to the Robbs Hut Road turnoff. Look for small sign and turn left on dirt road. In winter, park here and ski or hike 3 miles along the road to the hut. In summer, use combination to access both gates and drive up. Follow blue arrows to the hut.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Pollock Pines, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 33°F, day 59°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 21°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Robbs Hut is in California’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Kevin Kiley (I), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyKevin KileyU.S. Representative · California’s 3rd district
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-225-2523.
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAdam B. SchiffU.S. Senator · California
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAlex PadillaU.S. Senator · California
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Robbs Hut, Eldorado National Forest, California
Dear Kevin Kiley, I’m a constituent in California’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Robbs Hut, Eldorado National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Robbs Hut are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Robbs Hut keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Robbs Hut. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Robbs Hut (Eldorado National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Robbs Hut, Eldorado National Forest, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Robbs Hut, Eldorado National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Robbs Hut are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Robbs Hut keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Robbs Hut. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Robbs Hut (Eldorado National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Robbs Hut, Eldorado National Forest, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Robbs Hut, Eldorado National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Robbs Hut are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Robbs Hut keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Robbs Hut. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Robbs Hut (Eldorado National Forest, California) via campanac.com